Pursuit of perfection by imperfect spiritual walkers
Once upon a time, there was a King. He was a lover of flowers, gardens and nature, he had a very deep connection with nature. Since long it was his wish to build the world’s most beautiful garden. So he orders his people to build a really beautiful and PERFECT garden. His talented people starts working and build it. Flowers from all over the places are bought to King’s garden, special sections were created with their own environment for the survival of flowers of different climates. It had very unique, beautiful fragrant flowers not found anywhere else. King orders that every plant, every flower must be kept in its perfect condition at all times. A lot of money and efforts goes into all that, but no doubt, it was a unique garden and nowhere was any other such a beautiful garden ever existed in the history of gardens. People from all over the planet used to come to see his garden and they all used to become speechless after seeing so much perfection and beauty. It’s been about a year since this garden was built and maintained. King used to walk proudly in his garden, but somewhere deep within he wasn’t happy, something was missing, he did not know what?
A beggar used to sit outside this garden at the very edge of the garden, from where the forest started. King once lost in his agony trying to think what is missing reaches the old, wrinkled skin, shabbily dressed beggar. The beggar was a Realized Sage and at once he knew what is King’s problem. He looks at the king and hints him to walk with him. Lost in his thoughts, hooked to his question & agony, the king obeys and walks with the Sage. After walking for sometime they reach the center of the forest, it had a very high nice canopy of trees and a huge area beneath with some large, some small broken rocks, dry leaves, vines tightly hugging the trees, some entangled with each other and trees, a tree leaning and kissing the other tree, moss/fungi growing on fallen branches and a dirty pond with one alive and couple of dry Lotus flowers. Sage raises his hand and king stops right there.
Sage says – This is what is missing from your Garden!
You see dead leaves, broken rocks, dry flowers, parasite vines, moss/ fungi, fallen branches, dirty pond, leaning trees, entangled vines. This IMPERFECTION is missing from your garden, because you ordered your people to manage the garden in such a way that every plant, every flower should be kept in PERFECT condition at all times, hence they remove all yellow leaves, all dried leaves, all dead flowers, fallen branches, vines that are parasitic means need support of bigger trees to grow, dirt from the pond, trim extra branches that grow outside the Shape, remove leaning, kissing trees and entangled vines. This imperfection when meets perfection then it is COMPLETE. Death completes LIFE. Oh King, Death is missing from your Garden. Oh, King, hence Life is missing from your Garden! Tears start rolling down the cheeks of the King realizing it, seeing the depth, beauty, completion that Imperfection adds.
He realizes his mistake and from that day onward orders his people to only maintain the garden once in three months and the rest of the time just leave it to Nature! This imperfection, this death, this pause, this pain is Art! It's beautiful. Imperfection of a view becomes painting. Imperfection of language is poetry. Imperfection of earth is sculpture. Imperfection of air is heard as symphony. Imperfection of air is smelled as a fragrance.
Humans think Divinity is Perfection and Humanity the Imperfection need to be removed permanently in order to attain Perfection and in this chase/pursuit, they miss on life, forget to live. Divinity/Life is a Union of imperfection with perfection.
Life is a Perfect Imperfection.
Perfection alone cannot make Life, Imperfection is equally needed. Denial, Avoidance, Suppression of Imperfection doesn’t help, instead all that has to be accepted and embodied with correct perception. You may live with Imperfect Beings, you may fall in love with Imperfect Beings and all that is Perfect!
When I was in primary school I wrote down this quote by Blaise Pascal in my personal diary, as it touched me deeply – Nature has perfection, in order to show that she is the image of God and defects, to show that she is only his image.
Now I see that it was a deep acceptance of the fact that Imperfection has to meet with Perfection to be Complete, to be Divine, to be Life.
Jay Shivay,
Prakriti
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